The different styles of karate, diversity of the rules and lack of unified
protocols
that govern any type of competition indicated a need to create an international
governing body comprising united National Karate Federations that could start to address these issues from a unified global perspective.

After several decades of rapid worldwide growth,

several competitions started to attract karate

athletes from several countries during the 1960s.

Ryoichi Sasakawa, President of the Japan Karate Federation (JKF) and Jacques Delcourt,
President of the European Karate Union (EKU) jointly proposed a series of meetings that
would produce not only the first amalgamated international rules for sport Karate, but
also the establishment of the World Union of Karate Do Organizations (WUKO) on October 10, 1970.

Tokyo was the site where WUKO was inaugurated
and where the first WUKO World Championships were
held. Portland, Oregon hosted the first meeting of the
fledgling WUKO Directing Committee, the objective of
which was to lay the foundation for the future of unified
sport Karate.

National Karate Federations recognized by their National Olympic Committees and Highest Sport Authorities soon became members and thus WUKO became the most important world governing body for Karate.

The integration of several new organizations duringthe 1990s saw WUKO membership increase to 150 National Federations. Therefore, a new name that would more accurately reflect the size and scope of the organization was needed.

The name of the first International organization representing sport Karate was thus changed to World Karate Federation (WKF)on December 20, 1992.